Scheduling agents at contact centers is a complex process that typically involves a large number of variables to consider in generating schedules such as, for example, volume of communications to be handled (e.g., number of inbound communications typically received over a time period and/or number of outbound communications to be made over the time period), available staff, skills of various staff members (e.g., agents), reasons for communications (e.g., customer service, order taking, and/or sales), and number of communication sources (e.g., inbound queues and outbound queues). Further, in generating such schedules, forecasting techniques are typically employed to better predict scheduling variables based on historical data for such variables.
With that said, in today's world contact centers are beginning to use a wide range of channels of communication besides telephone calls to interact with individuals such as SMS text messages, Web chats, email, IM messaging, etc. A channel of communication is understood to be a particular medium used for communicating. For instance, a contact center may use telephone calls as a first channel of communication, SMS text messages as a second channel of communication, and Web chats as a third channel of communication for communicating with remote parties. As a result, the scheduling process has become even more complex with contact centers conducting multiple campaigns that involve the use of different channels of communication. Although a good amount of effort has been put into creating products and processes for generating schedules for contact centers for individual campaigns, deficiencies still exist with respect to products and processes for generating schedules for contact centers conducting multiple campaigns that may run concurrently, contiguously, or approximate to one another and involve different channels of communication.
Thus, a need in the art exists for improved processes for generating forecasts and schedules to conduct multiple campaigns involving different channels of communication. It is with respect to these considerations and others that the disclosure herein is presented.